Saturday, December 08, 2007

I'm gutted. My Eco Media Player arrived in exceptionally speedy time, but I've been terribly disappointed.

As expected, there's a certain charm to it all: the sound output is very good and cranking the power up is far more fun than winding a crank should be, but the interface brings it crashing down with an almighty thud.

Navigating between albums is a convoluted affair (hinging on an orderly use of folders), the controls are unresponsive (a second flashing “initializing” before audio playback starts doesn’t bode well) and getting songs to play in any proper order seems to take some kind of tagging beyond my ken. Seriously, albums just will not play in the order they should, but there doesn't seem to be any rhyme nor reason to how they do play. Oh, and stepping out of the audio play mode even to browse the other modes (to, say, look at photos or read an ebook) halts playback.

I wanted to love this thing, I really did. And in many ways I still do. It does have the feel of a good, solid earthy piece of technology. The torch is great, there’s a nice little speaker on the front, and there’s a lovely tingle when you see your mobile recharge bar come alight as you wind the crank (and not due to poor electrical insulation), but it’s not quite there.

My advice: wait a bit. The idea is solid, and it shines with all manner of hardware innovation. Now they just have to get the software on the same page. But for now, I must return to my fervent desire to get hold of one of the XO laptops!